My client utilizes Plesk (9.X) for Server Management.

• We're implementing a custom backup solution, which should include a complete restorable representation of the actual Plesk configuration (Emails, Domains, etc.).

• We have full access, since it is a dedicated server resembling these steps:

• Plesk offers some backups, but they do not include the actual content of the (sub-)domains.

• Browsing the docs and the internet, I haven't found much ideas on that problem.

Our target is to have a disaster recovery scenario:

1. Reinstall a clean OS (Ubuntu) from scratch.
2. Install MySQL/PHP and dependencies (since this runs the app)
3. Install a bare plesk
4. Restore all domains + plesk configuration from an archive
5. Continue operations ...

Now steps 1, 2, 3 and 5 are trivial. But what are the best practices for step 4?

A side questions: Are there any easy-to-use open source apps out there, to create and restore server-images (even on machines with an possible different hardware)?

Thanks for your time and input.